Aggada -- Translations into English; Bible. Old Testament -- Legends; Jewish legends; Midrash -- Translations into English
[321]
THE MATERIALS FOR THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE TABERNACLE
When, on the Day of Atonement, God said to Moses, "Let them make Me a
sanctuary, that I may dwell among them," that the nations of the world
might see that He has forgiven Israel their sin, the worship of the
Golden Calf, it was gold He bade them bring for the adornment of the
sanctuary. God said: "The gold of the Tabernacle shall serve as an
expiation for the gold they employed in the construction of the Golden
Calf. Besides gold, let them bring Me twelve other materials for the
construction of the Tabernacle: 'silver, brass, and blue, and purple,
and scarlet, fine linen, and goats' hair, and rams' skins dyed red, and
badgers' skins, and shittim wood, oil for the light, spices for
anointing-oil, and for sweet incense, onyx stones and stones to be set
in the ephod and in the breastplate.'" To these instructions, God added
these words: "But do not suppose that you are giving Me these thirteen
objects as gifts, for thirteen deed did I perform for you in Egypt,
which these thirteen objects now repay. For 'I clothed you with
broidered work, and shod you with badgers' skins, and girded you about
with fine linen, and I covered you with silk. I decked you also with
ornaments, and I put bracelets upon your arms, and chains about your
necks. And I put jewels on your foreheads, and earrings in your ears,
and a beautiful crown upon your heads.' But in the future world, in
return for these thirteen offerings to the Tabernacle, you shall
receive thirteen gifts from Me, when 'I shall create upon every
dwelling place of Mount Zion, and upon her assemblies, a cloud and
smoke by day, and the shining of a flaming fire by night, for upon all
the glory shall be a defence. And there shall be a tabernacle for a
shadow in the daytime from the heat, and for a place of refuge, and for
a covert, from storms and from rain.'" God continued: "Give your
contributions to the sanctuary with a willing heart. Do not think that
you need give anything out of your pockets, for all you have belongs to
Me, through whom you received it in you passage through the Red Sea,
when you took their wealth from the Egyptians. [322] I demand nothing
from the other nations, but from you I do so, because it was I that led
you out of Egypt. But you shall erect a sanctuary to Me not in this
world only, but in the future world also. At first the Torah dwelt with
Me, but now that it is in your possession, you must let Me dwell among
you with the Torah."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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